Attention is the number one commodity in today’s business world. Unless you can get it; you will not succeed.

And in this hyper competitive world doused in piles and piles of mediocre communication… You can’t spread the word; your users must.

Advertising is crippled; as is using the press for PR.

Using these traditional methods can cause a limited amount of awareness amongst your target market if you have millions to spend but people today are turning off to mediocre ads, never mind watching ad-free HBO and Netflix, or employing ad-blockers on their web browsers.

If you’re paying for advertising you’d better plan a monster launch with millions invested otherwise it’s not going to cut through enormous clutter that is a typical media life. Even spending millions is no guarantee; you may still have a disaster if what you do is considered as spam by your target consumers. So, because your small Budget means you can’t reach everybody and as people are generally wary of all types of advertising, they just don’t believe ads. The business implication is they need to hear your news from their friends.

We all need to hear “it” from our friends. Whether “it” is news of a new launch, a relaunch, greater distribution, and exclusive offer. Whether “friends” are someone I know in person or might just know online, or an anonymous reviewer on booking.com. Today’s communication skills are about managing a range of trustedfilters. And those filters generally seek to guard their independence and credibility wisely. Credibility is everything in today’s attention economy. If you can’t be trusted, then you’re probably going to be ignored. How can I use this in a work example. Say for example you’re designing s new business website here’s how you could consider adding or amending elements to enhance credibility.

We don’t take a look at a new business or new site until our friends/trusted filters indirectly inform us it’s open to business. And oftentimes, we have to hear from multiple friends/trusted filters that something is worth checking out before we do.

An implication is that not only do we need to focus and identify a target market but consequently we’re we communicate but now how we communicate by trusted proxies to cut through the communication defences we have.